HTC's S3 Graphics sues Apple again for alleged patent violations

S3 Graphics, a company that smartphone maker HTC is in the process of acquiring, has sued Apple again this week, this time accusing the iPhone maker of violating two different patents.

As first noted by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, S3 has accused Apple of violating two new patents originally applied for in the 1990s. They are:
U.S. Patent No. 5,945,997: "Block- and band-oriented traversal in three-dimensional triangle rendering," granted in 1999.
U.S. Patent No. 5,581,279, "VGA controller circuitry," granted in 1996.
As is par for such complaints, S3 has asked that Apple products it believes are infringing -- including the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac computers -- be barred from sale. A complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission was accompanied by a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in the district of Delaware.

The lawsuit filed on Thursday with the ITC is the second complaint S3 Graphics has lodged against Apple. S3 won a partial victory in that complaint in July, as a judge determined Apple infringed on two out of four patents cited in the case.

Apple responded early this year with its own patent infringement suit filed against S3 in January. HTC then acquired S3 Graphics for $300 million, giving it a potential legal counter in its own, separate ongoing legal battles with Apple.

In July, an initial ruling from the ITC found that HTC had violated two patents owned by Apple related to the iPhone. Apple had originally accused HTC of violating 10 patents in total.

There might be a conspiracy here to drown Apple with lawsuits, and make them unable to focus on any one case.

70+ billion dollars can afford them the best lawyers for almost an unlimited number of lawsuits. In the end, they'll win some and lose some. The ones they win, they'll make sure to recoup their lawyer fees. I really don't see apple losing out.

does anyone think HTC is not behind this. now that it looks like Apple will win their case over them. These companies do not realize it is going to cost them more than it will cost Apple.

Apple has deeper pockets at this point than these companies do and has better lawyers.

Note that your response says nothing about the validity of the patent lawsuits (on either side), but rather Apple will win because they have more money and higher priced lawyers.

That, in essence, is the problem with the current patent system.

Look at when the lawsuits FIRST went out. The issue wasn't if HTC (and by extension Google) actually violated the patents. Most bloggers took this either as a given or wrote it off entirely, depending on their bias. Instead, they said that those companies were in a weak spot because they had MUCH smaller patent portfolios.

In "simple talk" these pundits were basically saying that the problem HTC and Google had WASN'T that they were (or weren't) violating patents, it was that They didn't have enough patents that Apple violated (or didn't) to make a strong defense.

These lawsuits aren't about "defending intellectual property" if they were, wouldn't Apple be immune from counter-suits since they (according to many commenters here) only innovate and don't steal? But that's not what we're seeing.

These lawsuits are akin to the companies beating each other over the head with their clubs (patents) to see who can get the other company to yield first. How does this help anything? Let alone "Protect" Innovation.